UK issues first ever thermal emergency – RT World News
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The UK Met Office sounded the alarm on Friday morning, raising its heat health alert level to red, saying the forecast constitutes a national emergency.
The Met Office forecast temperatures in England to reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Monday and Tuesday, a record high for the UK.
A red alert indicates that “a heat wave is so severe and/or prolonged that its effects extend outside the health and social protection system”, the government agency said. “At this level, illness and death can occur among fit and healthy people, not just high-risk groups.”
The Met Office has advised citizens to draw their curtains in rooms exposed to the sun, drink plenty of fluids and keep an eye out for young children and older family members, as well as those with health problems. underlying health. Unlike their American counterparts, most British homes do not have air conditioning equipment.
Although the alert is the first of its kind issued by the Met Office, the alert system was only introduced in 2021. The World Health Organization has been calling for such systems to be introduced globally since 2016 , saying that climate change will lead to intense heat waves this century.
“We have seen that when climate change has led to such unprecedented severe weather events around the world, it can be difficult for people to make the best decisions in these situations,” Met Office chief executive Penny Endersby said in a statement. “Please treat the warnings we issue as seriously as you would a red or amber warning from us for wind or snow.”
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Britain recorded its hottest temperature on record in 2019, when Cambridge recorded 38.7 degrees Celsius in July 2019. However, intense heat waves have been recorded periodically since record keeping began at the start of the 20th century. 1976 and 1995 tied for the driest summers on record in Britain, with temperatures reaching 36 degrees in 1976 and persistent drought from June to October.
Britain also suffered a notoriously intense heat wave in 1808, with temperatures reportedly reaching between 37 and 38.5 degrees in England in July.
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